Last year saw the failure of NBC's The Cape and ABC's No Ordinary Family, yet the networks seem to remain intrigued by the notion of presenting weekly superheroics. Syfy is taking a shot with Alphas, while FX is shooting the pilot for Powers, ABC Family has The Nine Lives of Chloe King, and ABC is reportedly still excited about the potential for The Hulk and A.K.A. Jessica Jones, which are in development.
There are, according to this article, some key elements that could make the difference between success and failure. As to the Hulk, being produced by Guillermo del Toro, and Jessica Jones, being adapted by Melissa Rosenberg, ABC Entertainment President Paul Lee has explained, "What really distinguishes these are the A-list show runners. We would love to make a Marvel franchise work on the network. They probably won't be the only two Marvel things we do."
On the challenges of creating a successful superhero TV show, Damon Lindelof offers, "It's hard to launch a successful TV show or movie, no matter where it comes from. That goes double for superhero and comic-book adaptations. A superhero is larger than life. You can go and sit in a theater and watch a superhero there, because the movie screen is also larger than life. When you invite them into your living room, they have to be accessible — and that's a very slippery slope, one that Smallville handled masterfully."
Smallville is noted as a show that got it right by making sure that outside of the fact that Clark Kent was an alien with developing superpowers, everything else remained firmly rooted in reality.
FX's Power is an example of that, as noted by the network's VP of original programming, Nick Grad: "It's another way to do a cop show. For a network that did The Shield, how can you possibly top that? You do a different kind of cop show. As [Powers cocreator] Brian Michael Bendis would say, it 'stays on the ground,' both literally and figuratively."
As far as one unnamed producer is concerned, any successful genre show "starts with character, not costume. A well-written show that has a compelling central character, who has had something extraordinary happen to them, will be relatable. And people will watch."
At this point, the floor is yours: what ingredients do you feel are necessary to successfully create a superhero television series?